PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — Following updates to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, Calvert County’s Board of Education honed in on the district’s pre-K program and high school absenteeism as areas to watch.
Calvert schools recently shared their progress report for the five pillars of the Blueprint. The five pillars — Early Childhood, High-Quality & Diverse Teachers and Leaders, College and Career Readiness, More Resources for Students to Be Successful, and Governance and Accountability — are meant to create strong school systems for teachers and help prepare students, especially those who have been historically underserved, for the future. According to their website, the Maryland State Department of Education will continuously assess and improve upon their guidelines.
As for Calvert County, communications coordinator Marcy Gruber highlighted the pillar where the district had been successful. In the second pillar, she pointed out the creation of a career ladder to draw in talented teaching applications and to clearly outline a career trajectory, with incentives at higher levels. Teachers also will now work on a 60/40 schedule, meaning they spend 60% of their time in instruction and the other 40% planning, meeting with supervisors or mentors, or training.
Calvert County has also been working on expanding its pre-K program, including work with private partners and exploring a sliding scale payment option. Board members pointed out that the pre-K program did not fill all available spots this year — but Chief Academic Officer Susan Johnson said that was likely due to the fact that they focused on “tier 1” families who displayed the most need for the program.
The board also discussed the issue of chronic absenteeism. Calvert’s chronic absenteeism hit an all-time high in 2022 at 32.8%. It has since declined to 17.3% in 2025, a change for which Gruber credited the dedication of schools and families. However, the rates had dropped significantly at the elementary and middle school levels, and less so at the high school level.
Gruber said the school has a five-tier intervention system and is reviewing it at the high school level.
“We recognize that if we can get students to have better habits early on, those tend to stick and hopefully reduce the percentage that we are seeing at the high school level,” Gruber said.
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Was the Covid world a factor of the absenteeism? It was a jarring few years that significantly impacted everyone.
Wonder when that 60/40 split of time will happen for teachers, because it’s not happening now. If that’s what they reported, that wasn’t true. Maybe in some building or small pockets, but not across the district.